Good Chance To Save Seaside After All

EDITORIAL

Inn/Condo Proposal Would Restore Historic Campus

The former Seaside Regional Center iin Waterford is seen in 2006. (Hartford Courant )

June 20, 2014|EDITORIAL, The Hartford Courant

The main building at the former Seaside Regional Center in Waterford is one of a kind, a haunting historic structure, an architectural response to a 1930s medical challenge.

It was built as a sanitarium for children with tuberculosis, the first facility in the country dedicated to what was called heliotropic treatment for TB. The theory was to give children extensive exposure to the sun and outdoor air. The great architect Cass Gilbert, designer of the Woolworth Building in New York, New Haven's Union Station and the U.S. Supreme Court building, along with three state capitols, designed the main Seaside building with large terraces and porches —- arms stretching toward the sea — so the youngsters could sit outside.

Drugs soon made heliotropic treatment obsolete, leaving a unique and lovely period building. The question now — one that never should have come up — is whether it can be saved. It should be, if possible, or meticulously replicated.

Gov. Rell's Visit

The sanitarium campus became a regional center for people with developmental disabilities. It closed in 1996. Since then, the state has bumbled along trying to do something with it. The town has thrice opted not to take ownership. In 2000, the state named Mark S. Steiner of Farmington as the preferred developer. His proposal fell through after many pointless delays when Gov. M. Jodi Rell visited the campus in 2007, was struck by its beauty and decided not to sell it.

Alas, she couldn't come up with a use for it — the sine qua non for historic preservation — and the recession hit, so she changed her mind and put it back on the market in 2009. Mr. Steiner is again the preferred developer.

Mr. Steiner first planned to restore and incorporate the main building and a second Cass Gilbert building on the property, a nurses' dormitory, into an age-restricted residential development. That was a dozen years ago. Now, he said, years of poor maintenance have left the main building in such bad shape that it cannot be restored, but he says he will replicate it, as was done with the Ocean House in Watch Hill, R.I.

Also, he said, the market has changed. The 104 condominiums he proposes will not be age-restricted. He is going before the town's planning and zoning commission Wednesday to ask for a zoning change that would allow him to put a small inn, with no more than 40 rooms, in the dormitory building, which will be preserved. Mr. Steiner said he reduced the number of condominiums by 18 to include the inn.

Opponents

There has always been some neighborhood opposition to redeveloping the Seaside property. Opponents say that Mr. Steiner doesn't have the financing to do the project and that the development will add too much traffic to Shore Road, among other things. Mr. Steiner said in an interview that he is "very confident" the financing will be in place, and said the development will not congest traffic. He'll have to make that case; his plan does not appear to overwhelm the property.

Town officials have not done an independent engineering report on the structural soundness of the main building, and — though the building appears to be highly compromised — could do that. There are also advantages to a meticulous "preservation by replication," such as getting rid of some unfortunate additions that subtract from the building's charm.

When this is finally over, there should be two results. There should be a careful restoration or replication of this unique building and campus, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, as part of a careful development.

Also, the state has to become a better steward of its own historic properties. At Seaside and the former Norwich State Hospital, lovely historic buildings were allowed to deteriorate. This is shameful; officials must find a better way to put such properties back into use. In Waterford, it's been 18 years and counting.